


Hold Tight (I Want Some Sandworm Mama)

by pastel_x_tea



Category: Beetlejuice - All Media Types, Beetlejuice - Perfect/Brown & King
Genre: (mentioned briefly) - Freeform, (they weren't listed as a character lmao), Adoption, Bugs, Comfort, Fluff, Fluff without Plot, I'm Bad At Titles, Multi, Polyamory, beetlebabes shippers if you even look at this fic i will stomp you to death with my hooves, lydia mentioned - Freeform, sandworms
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-08
Updated: 2019-07-08
Packaged: 2020-06-24 23:13:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19733629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pastel_x_tea/pseuds/pastel_x_tea
Summary: Barbara is thinking too much again, as she usually does. Luckily, the ghost with the most has a plan.





	Hold Tight (I Want Some Sandworm Mama)

Barbara Maitland sat on the Deetz’s couch with her head in her hands. Before she herself had died, she’d figured ghosts couldn’t sit on furniture. Considering the whole walking-through-walls thing, she assumed they’d just sink through. But if they sank through the couch, wouldn’t they sink through the floor? And what if they kept sinking through the ground? How far down would a ghost be able to go? She could sink all the way through and see the lava- she could get to China in a matter of minutes! She could finally learn Mandarin!

But that wasn’t how it worked, and she was comfortably seated on the Deetz’s couch, mulling over all the things you learned to be untrue only after you died. Death had been like that to her lately.

Her jugs were long since smashed, the yarn kit torn to tatters, and the kombucha commandeered by Beetlejuice and Lydia (they pinky promised that they wouldn’t pour it on the neighbor’s head, but the neighborhood suspiciously smelled of armpit that night). All the unused opportunities of her old life- well, her life at all- were gone. All that existed was her new existence as a ghost: being with Adam and Beetlejuice, a friend to Charles and Delia, a mother to Lydia. A mother to a Lydia who in a short matter of years would be off to college, a life of her own to find someone and settle down, giving the five of them simply a drop by the house or a summoning from time to time.

She hated to think like this. Lydia _needed_ her. And yet… she didn’t need her in the way Barbara yearned to be needed. Lydia didn’t need to be held and rocked, swaddled and coddled. When a thunderstorm came bellowing, Lydia didn’t need reassuring arms wrapped around her, a cuddly teddy bear, and a soft lullaby to lull her back to sleep. Lydia wasn’t small and innocent, Lydia didn’t need to be protected from the big scary world out there, Lydia wasn’t… she just wasn’t…

Lydia wasn’t a _baby_.

As Barbara was mulling over what her subconscious had just revealed to her, the ghost with the most walked in, mouth full of half-mashed something-or-other.

“Heehh bffbrs,” he announced. Barbara shot him a sideways glance. “Srrhy, srrhy.” He took a giant gulp and finished the act by wiping his mouth on his arm. A lone pair of half-chewed beetle legs skittered up his sleeve. “Sorry, I know you hate when I do that. Hey babes.”

Barbara returned her head to her hands.

He floated over to take a spot on the couch next to her. “Hey, what’s wrong? You’re usually all...” He daintily posed, batting his eyelashes and flashing a darling (if yellowing) smile. Barbara looked up briefly, then took her gaze back to the floor. 

“Geez, not even a smile? Tough crowd. Y’know, I-“

“Beetlejuice, do you ever miss the things you could only do when you’re alive?”

“Whaddya mean? I know you’re new to the bein’ dead thing, but you can do all the same stuff here as you can with a body. Hell, you can do some shit here you _can’t_ do with a body-“

“No, you can’t, not really. We can’t... I don’t know, see anyone except the Deetzes, go out and make non-dead friends, we can’t...” She sighed. If her life after death was already this strange that her and Adam’s new partner and now her confidant was a long-dead man in a pinstripe suit picking beetle antennae out of his teeth, she might as well go all in. “Dead people can’t have babies, Beej.”

Beetlejuice blinked. “How d’you know that? _I_ don’t even know that. I don’t think anyone’s even _tried_. Of course, if you ‘n Adam wanna test-“

“ _No_.”

“You’re right, you’re right. Very poorly timed.”

Beetlejuice wasn’t gonna question why Barbara wanted a baby, anyway. He’d been dead long enough to learn that there were just some things about the recently deceased that he would never understand. But _babies_? He barely got within 100 feet of one in life- by choice- but definitely knew what they were like. They come out all weird and red and wrinkly and _ew_ , too ew for even him, and then after all that they can’t even _walk_ or _talk_ or wipe themselves, and constantly had things coming out both ends that you just had to _deal with_ , besides that “new baby” smell that made Beej gag. What’s the appeal? He’d take Lydia’s teen angst over a baby _any_ day. Just so tiny and gross and helpless and-

A lightbulb appeared over his head.

Switching it off again, he turned to Barbara. “That reminds me. Y’remember that sandworm Lydia adopted, the one that hates my guts?”

Barbara mustered a slight giggle. “The one that kept trying to eat you when Lyd wasn’t around?”

Beej smiled, a genuine one this time. “That would be the one, babes. Wellllllll, the other week, Lyds and I had a little... _revelation_ , and, uh... you know what, I think you should just come see for yourself.” He stood up with a creak and offered his hand. Hesitantly, Barbara took it in her own.

He pulled her up from the couch, eliciting a shocked yelp that melted into a laugh. He pulled her along, up the stairs and down the hallway, nearing the door to Lydia’s room. He knew she knew the way, but it was so much more _exciting_ like this, leading her along this path to a secret only she and him... and Adam, of course, when he got here... and Lydia, obviously... would know about. He flung Lydia’s bedroom door open with gusto- unnecessary, since he was a ghost, but he liked to make a dramatic entrance- and excitedly ran over to Lydia’s bedside. Gently lifting the black lace bedskirt, he pressed a finger to his lips and whispered, “Take a look.”

Barbara raised an eyebrow at him.

“No, come on, it’s not a prank. I promise. Just take a look.”

Barbara knelt down by his side to peer beneath the bedskirt. The entirety of the space underneath the bed was full of sandworm, its black-and-white striped body coiling and snaking around, trying to conceal its presence beneath Lydia’s bed. Well, the entirety of the space _except_ for a small blanket carefully folded in the corner, and placed upon it, a tiny baby sandworm, twitching its outer snout and rolling side to side.

Beetlejuice carefully pulled the blanket out from beneath the bed. “Yeah, turns out that before we found it, the sandworm had a grand ol’ time out in sandworld-land and last week it just… had _this_. And we can’t keep it in Lyd’s room and our attic is _huge_ , and I know it’s not like a _you_ baby, y’know, human and all… and, and I’m sorry I can’t do better than this but I figured-“

“I love him.”

“… what?”

“Beej, I _love_ him!” Barbara wrapped the blanket around the worm softly, holding it to her chest.

“Y’don’t think it’s gross and slimy and ugly and disgusting?”

“I love _you_ , don’t I?” Barbara laughed as Beetlejuice put a hand to his chest and feigned hurt. “No, but really, it’s…” She lifted it up above her head, giggling as it cooed in delight. “… you know, it’s kitsch.”

“ _What_?”

Barbara smiled. “Ugly-cute.”

“Ah, _ugly-cute_. One’a those… mashup words. Yeah, y’know, there’s one of those mashup words for me, too.”

“Oh, really? And what would that be?”

Beej broke out a grin of his own. “ _Ratsexy_.”

“Rat… sexy?”

“You know, sexy, but in a ‘rat’ kinda way? Internet made it up. You know what I’m talking about, don’t you? You get it,” Beetlejuice remarked knowingly, looking at the reader through their screen.

“Well, I dunno about all that, but this little guy _is_ adorable.” She scratched the sandworm’s snout, eliciting another happy screech. “I think I’ll name him…”

“Demon? Fearmonger? Hellspawn? Beetlejuice Jr.?”

“… Liam.”

“ _Liam_?” 

“It’s what Adam and I always said we’d name a son, if we ever decided to have a kid."

Beetlejuice shrugged. As long as she was happy. “Eh, yeah, why not. Liam. It’s… nice.”

Suddenly, Adam peered around the doorway. “ _There_ you guys are, I thought I heard you in h-“

Barbara shoved their new baby into his arms. “Liam!”

“ _Ratsexy_!” Beetlejuice announced.

Adam sighed. “I… don’t even want to ask."


End file.
